


As a Piston in a Machine

by Dancains



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: I'm really on a kick with these short fics I guess, M/M, One Shot, Smut, That's exactly what it sounds like, Topson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 19:23:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18414296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancains/pseuds/Dancains
Summary: Those same hands that have worked him open and lax and tender set tinkling china before him, a spoon at a perfect right angle to its accompanying saucer. Everything as it should be. It's a small wonder the little teacup does not shatter in the clumsy tremblings of Edward's grasp.





	As a Piston in a Machine

**Author's Note:**

> So this is...a _really_ significant deviation from how I usually envision the dynamic between these guys, but I guess the heart writes what the heart writes?
> 
> This fic brought to you by Bach's Goldberg Variations, every song ever by Lana Del Rey, and viewers like you!

“The cure for anything is salt water—tears, sweat, or the sea. ” - Karen Blixen

" _More,_ Sir?"

Any pretense of gentility in Jopson's voice is long gone, and all that remains is the crude, hot rasp of the words, now ringing in Edward's ears. The warmth of Jopson's breath raises the hairs at the back of his neck. A shiver runs through him, like a ripple across some surface of water that has been left far too long undisturbed.

"Yes... _yes,_ Jopson."

He's up against the wall, cheek pressed heavily into the blessed coolness of the bulkhead, while the blunt head of an entirely different persuasion has only just breached him. Edward finds he is exceedingly grateful for the pitch-black condition of the slop room, if only so the steward cannot witness the perfect, rose-coloured "O" his lips must form, as another inch of generously greased flesh eases into that singular place betwixt his legs. The wet of it is already trickling into the matted hair of his thighs, an intimation of things soon to come.

Jopson is not a man of unusual proportion, and in fact, would most likely not exceed Edward's own length and thickness, were they to properly compare cock-stands. Despite this--and probably owing to his scant prior experience--Edward feels as if he's being cleaved apart by something enormous.

He's so deliriously happy that he could weep.

The fullness and burning and stretching is _something,_ blessed something, in the endless, dayless stretch of cold decay. Something alive and tangible with which to punctuate the futile monotony. Jopson's strong, wiry arm, wrapped around his middle--for those limbs hold a deceptive strength, far beyond what's needed to mend clothes or brew tea--keeps them nearly flush, serving as a tether, a land-line, for Edward's mind, now often lost at sea.

Jopson grunts, a rough, all-too-human sound, as he rocks back and forth in the most minute and exacting movements that a man in such position might muster. Gradually, Edward's discomfort diffuses into the sweet, roiling heat of his groin, the very thing he spends endless hours, day and night, yearning for. He finds he's once again at full-mast; the friction against his long shirt front, and the wall on the other side of it, is a small, aching ecstasy in its own right. Later, he would have to rub the growing, damp spot out from the linen with the icy water of his basin, lest anyone see.

Oh, if only they _could_ see--prim, placid Jopson, working his length as vigorously as a piston in a machine, setting Edward's every nerve aflame, molten white and threatening to spill over until there is naught left to spill. 

Each time he's summoned to the great cabin, Edward's breath is stolen from his lungs, once-steady words faltering from his lips. In an instant, any impression of command, of authority or control, has left him. He is but a hollow. Those same hands that have worked him open and lax and tender set tinkling china before him, a spoon at a perfect right angle to its accompanying saucer. Everything as it should be. It's a small wonder the little teacup does not shatter in the clumsy tremblings of Edward's grasp.

"Shall I frig you, Sir? Would-" Jospon hisses through gritted teeth, as Edward clenches even more tightly about him, "Would that be to your liking, Sir?" Each thrust is a dagger of pleasure to them both.

He must manage some noise or phrase in the affirmative, because Jopson's spit-slicked fingers are soon wrapped around him, swiftly bringing him closer to his precipice. He wished he could somehow hold this memory, every facet of these sensations preserved like a flower pressed between pages. To freeze the moment solid, as they were frozen into the deathly grip of the ice. Thomas Jopson thoroughly, gloriously sodomizing him until the end of time, and then some.

His legs are quivering, threatening to buckle beneath him, if it weren't for the other man bolstering him upright. Jopon's thumb works itself across the head of his cock, through the wetness at the slit, and of their own accord his hips abruptly cant back, the same moment Jopson bucks sharply into him.

"Tho _mas_ ," his own voice betrays him; the sound is far more desperate and wanton than anything he had ever heard in a house of ill repute, two simple syllables stretching into infinity.

Jopson's movements stutter and slow, a rush of air passing from his lips. Edward suddenly feels as if he has broken some unspoken rule of their arrangement, the peculiar conditions that have brought them together in the sweat-humid dark.

Still buried to the hilt, Jopson's other hand, which had perhaps been braced against the bulkhead, finds its way under Edward's shirt, gradually smoothing up and down his flank, grazing the small of his back before coming to rest at the dimpled indent of his hip, the grip hot and firm. He cannot see anything, but Edward imagines he can feel Jopson's face pressed to his hair, not unlike how their thighs meet front to back, inhaling whatever earthen scent might be found there.

When Jopson resumes his previous state of motion, the pace is tortuously slow, pulling long, ragged draws of breath from some place deep in Edward's throat. His mind swims, the sensation of honeyed drunkenness--bright and blinding and golden--no doubt a result of the tantalizing fullness working its way through him.

He is far too stupefied to sense his own oncoming climax, a pounding, rolling wave breaking violently against the rock, the last of its foam and salt pouring between Jopson's fingers. Soon after, he feels Jopson twitching and jerking and spilling into him, a crystal cut glass overflowing onto pristine table linen. The noise he makes, as his teeth graze the shell of Edward's ear, is purely animal, drowning in the scrape and groan of their wooden confines. 

With delicate care, they eventually disentangle from one another, and Edward turns himself around, back sliding down the wall as he sinks to a crouch. Every fiber of him is quivering. Similarly afflicted, Jopson is on his knees before him.

The dark is still a blind-fold over his tired eyes, a soothing compress in its own way, so he measures the space between them by touch, hesitantly bringing their lips together. Jopson surges against him, like the gentle flow of a river, sweetly petting at his hair and whiskers and anywhere else he can reach, reassurance and relief flavoring his mouth.

Beyond _Terror_ , the alien emptiness is spread all around them, unfathomable in its size. But in a dim, cramped, little room, made furnace-warm by their two bodies, Edward had felt perfectly and wholly safe in Thomas' arms.


End file.
